CRISP will be hosting a panal at the 2019 Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) Conference in Brussels in January on the topioc of Smart City Governance.

Topic Area:

Smart City (SC) developments are embedding digital technologies is all aspects of urban life. Typically, the focus is more efficient services and better-informed policy-making. The SC umbrella covers a range of technologies/practices, including sensory devices, large data sets, data science, sentiment analysis, new apps and dashboards (etc.). Whilst the focus has been on service delivery there is an increasing awareness that these technologies can be used for citizen engagement and novel governance practices - to empower service users and citizens. There has also been an increasing awareness of the data intensity of these SC practices and concern about the privacy/data protection implications, with commentators referring to SC’s as ‘Smart Surveillance Cities’, primarily because the possibilities offered rely on the collection, processing and matching of vast quantities of personal data. Drawing on academic, activist, practitioner and regulatory perspectives, this panel examines the privacy issues in a contemporary SC environment.

Key questions:

• What are the privacy and data protection issues relating to Smart City initiatives?
• How is privacy and data protection managed in the Smart City context?
• To what extent are citizens and service users engaged in the governance of privacy in Smart Cities?
• Are Smart Cities by definition also Smart Surveillance Cities?

Speakers include:

• William Webster, University of Stirling, UK
• David Murakami Wood, Queens University, Canada
• Mirko Schaefer, Utrecht University, Netherlands
• Ola Svenonius, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Sara Degli-Esposti, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain
• Max von Grafenstein, University of the Arts Berlin, Germany